Theses and Dissertations

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Beauty and openness: Kant's aesthetic judgment of taste, Yogācāra, and open presence meditation
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Brelje, Kate, author; Kneller, Jane, advisor; MacKenzie, Matthew, advisor; Kiefer, Kathleen, committee member
This paper provides a comparative analysis of Kant's aesthetic judgment of taste and Open Presence meditation interpreted through a Yogācāra philosophical framework. I begin with an expository analysis of Kant's cognitive and aesthetic judgments, highlighting the presence of attention, form of reflection, and structure of purposeless purposiveness in the judgment. Next, I address the Buddhist idealist Yogācāra philosophical tradition. Through this theoretical lens, I examine Open Presence meditation, with an emphasis on meditative non-dualism, attention, and meditative goals. In the final chapter, I tie together the groundwork laid in the first two chapters into a comparative analysis identifying points of compatibility and contention within the general areas of judgment, attention, purposeless purposiveness, and transformation. Finally, I suggest that, given the results of this analysis, Kant's aesthetic judgment of taste might benefit from being construed as a type of meditation.